"When I got back from Vietnam, it was the worst time in my life," said Hoch, 68, a retired printer who lives in Pennsburg. "Everyone, in general, looked down on you if you were in the military. We were made out to be villains by the media. I was more comfortable in combat than in my own country."

The experience transformed Hoch and set him on a path to becoming an award-winning author and veterans' advocate. He runs a transitional home for struggling vets in Pennsburg and, as a volunteer for the Lehigh County District Attorney's Veterans Mentor program, is often seen in Allentown courtrooms standing beside veterans who have run afoul of the law.

American Legion Post 16. Slatington, will hold services at 10:30 a.m. today at Northern Lehigh Bible Fellowship Church, 840 S. Best Ave., Walnutport. Legionnaires, Auxiliary, and Sons of the Legion should meet at the post home at 10 a.m. Dennis Ziegler, president of Veterans Day services;...

LEHIGH COUNTY

American Legion Post 16. Slatington, will hold services at 10:30 a.m. today at Northern Lehigh Bible Fellowship Church, 840 S. Best Ave., Walnutport. Legionnaires, Auxiliary, and Sons of the Legion should meet at the post home at 10 a.m. Dennis Ziegler, president of Veterans Day services;...

Launched in 2011, the program helps veterans navigate the difficult path from war zone to society by pairing them with other veterans. Mentors support the defendants during court appearances and check in on them at home to make sure they're taking medication and showing up for therapy sessions.

It's effective because no one understands a soldier like a soldier, said Bret Moore, a psychologist from San Antonio who worked with the Army and has written several books, including one about adjusting to life after deployment.

The military is a unique culture and the shared experience of having lived in that culture often brings veterans together, he said.

"In short, veterans understand each other," Moore said.

Lehigh County officials started the mentor program because they saw a growing number of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan getting into trouble with the law, said Steven Luksa, first assistant district attorney.

While courts in the Lehigh Valley are not seeing a surge of veterans charged with crimes, the ones who are arrested typically struggle with combat-related mental illness, especially PTSD, officials say.

This mirrors a national trend of incarcerated veterans. A five-year study for the Veterans Health Administration looked at 30,968 vets in state and federal prisons and found that those returning from the recent wars in the Middle East were three times more likely to have PTSD than veterans of prior wars.

Lehigh County's veterans mentor program is not designed to give participants a break on their punishment, but it does recognize that their service to the country carries some psychological baggage.

"We're reducing recidivism because the person who gets the help, gets the mentor, gets the treatment, is less inclined to re-offend."

Veterans are eligible for a mentor if they were honorably discharged. Veterans with a "general" discharge or "other than honorable" discharge are eligible on a case-by-case basis after a review of their military records.

Other counties, including Berks, have a specialty court for veterans with courtrooms and judges set aside for their cases. In the Berks program, veterans may have their criminal charges reduced or dismissed if they complete certain programs.

Luksa said Lehigh's approach uses fewer resources to achieve the same end.

"We can accomplish all the things that a specialty court does, without the costs associated with a specialty court," he said.

The Lehigh County program doesn't require any taxpayer money to keep going but accepts donations — including $15,000 recently from the Air Products Foundation — to help vets with housing, transportation and therapy.

Northampton County does not have a veterans court or mentor program, but District Attorney John Morganelli said veterans will get special consideration in the county's mental health court, which is expected to launch before the year ends.

Veterans who complete the program, a mix of intense supervision and treatment, will get their records expunged for certain crimes, Morganelli said.

"In years past, especially with the war winding down in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would see men who were suffering with documented mental illness, and they would steal something or get in a fight when they were off their meds," Morganelli said.

"If we convict these people, it's a double whammy for them, because now they have a hard time getting a job and reintegrating into society. Better to get them back on their medication than give them a record."

He said military service deserves recognition. If someone is arrested for a minor crime right before leaving for boot camp, for example, Morganelli might consider dropping the charges after speaking with the defendant's recruiter.

Lehigh District Attorney Jim Martin, who had hoped to join the Marine Corps after graduating from college in 1967 but got rejected because of a bad knee, said it was important to him that the program not be structured as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

"I view my job — and I think most prosecutors view their jobs — first and foremost as ensuring public safety," Martin said.

About half of the 24 mentors in the Lehigh County program were on active duty in such places as Vietnam, Kuwait, Kosovo, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Mediterranean. Volunteers are asked to work with defendants until the cases are complete and defendants are no longer under court supervision, such as on probation or parole.

To date, 20 defendants have completed supervision and remain arrest-free, according to the district attorney's office. Five others violated probation or parole by using drugs or alcohol or by committing another crime.

The program does not work for all vets. About a dozen defendants decided they didn't want a mentor after one or two meetings.

Bronson Peters, a 44-year-old Army veteran, served in Desert Storm and in Bosnia during the 1990s. Peters, of Fogelsville, became involved in the program after being charged with several misdemeanors in 2012. He said he struggled to adjust to civilian life after 10 years of deployment, often feeling he didn't fit in.

"There is nothing that you can compare to the military. There's no civilian occupation that matches up to that," he explained.

The district attorney's office paired him with Army veteran John Hinkle, a 70-year-old entrepreneur from Emmaus. Hinkle, a well-known fixture in Emmaus business and political circles, got Peters a job as an irrigation specialist with a friend's landscaping firm and even went to the job interview with him.

Hinkle said he's able to connect with Peters and other young men he's mentored through the program because he understands the way they think.

"The military is a different mind-set," Hinkle said. "There's a level of commitment that people who aren't in the military don't understand. And you don't just leave that behind when you leave the military."

Lehigh County courts do not keep statistics on how many veterans are accused of crimes. Luksa, who co-chairs a committee that weekly discusses newly arrested defendants who need special services for mental illness, substance abuse or other issues, said the group started to see more combat vets in the caseload about five years ago.

Substance abuse, especially alcoholism, is often a factor in veterans' crimes.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' 2012 Survey on Drug Use and Health, of the 20 million or so veterans living in the United States, 56 percent of men and 41 percent of women regularly use alcohol. At least 23 percent of male veterans have admitted to binge drinking, as did 14 percent of female vets.

Alcohol abuse is what landed Breinigsville resident Carlos Pagan Rosario in court and then in the mentor program. The 55-year-old former Marine spent 22 years in the military, completing missions in Grenada, Bosnia and Iraq.

Rosario has been taking painkillers for chronic back pain since 2004, when he fell 16 feet from a roof onto hard gravel during a firefight in Taji, Iraq. He mixed the drugs with alcohol, leading to a dangerous incident in July 2011 that netted him two drunken driving arrests within 24 hours.

Rosario's mentor, Jim Kerner, 63, of Coopersburg, said he wasn't surprised that Rosario had a drinking problem. Many of the men who served alongside him in Vietnam lost battles with alcoholism.

"Alcohol is glamorized in the military," Kerner said. "That's what the vast majority of military people used to escape the reality of the current situation."

Rosario said that having Kerner to talk with has helped him deal with the feelings of frustration that had alienated him from family and friends after he returned home.

Instead of keeping the horror stories of war inside, he compares notes with Kerner. Both have seen things that cannot be discussed in polite company. Kerner, for example, spent 13 months performing autopsies as a medic.

"I've seen human bodies in every possible condition," he said.

The program needs more people like Kerner, Hinkle and Hoch, who are willing to give their time. Martin said it is always on the lookout for new volunteers.

"Over the foreseeable future I continue to see a need for this," he said.

Hoch, who is mentoring three veterans, said writing provided an outlet to his post-war frustration, some of which was caused by the hate and rejection he experienced on his return from Vietnam. To date, he's penned seven books and is a frequent speaker at local schools and community organizations.

Hoch said he's haunted by stories of veterans who committed suicide after coming home from war and hopes that his books foster understanding of PTSD and other mental health problems affecting war vets.

"This is something that I've lived with my entire life," he said. "For a long time, I felt like there was no one who understood me. My wife didn't understand, my children didn't understand me. It's amazing how a combat veteran will open up to another combat veteran. They are the only other people who truly understand how you feel."